Documentation which is normally available to schools for analysis of the Futurekids Student Technology Curriculum includes The Big Book (described below), articles from the print media, references from administrators and teachers in schools where the curriculum has been implemented, marketing brochures, and sales related contact with the local franchisee and staff. Futurekids currently has three complete curriculum programs, Operation Futurekids (OF) and Futurekids Media International (FMI). The new program, Futurekids Frontiers (FF). Although the materials used for this analysis came mainly from FMI, the design and implementation of all three programs is essentially the same. See section 10.2 for an explanation of the coordination of these three programs.

Since I am associated with a local franchisee, I was able to examine the full scope and sequence document and thoroughly investigate the entire set of K-8 curriculum books, the local franchisee business plan (which I helped write), and even the General Unit Offering Circular provided to the potential franchisees as per Federal Trade Commission requirements. I had access to the full teacher training manual, all 18 curriculum books, the full scope and sequence document, and several additional articles about schools that have implemented the curriculum.

I have also had personal experience teaching from the Futurekids curriculum in the local center. I conducted several short interviews with the local franchisee and other staff members, and was gifted with a two personal interviews with Mark German, Vice President--Education, Futurekids, Inc.

The bulk of the materials (including The Big Book) focus on the curriculum itself: the content; the needed materials--hardware, software, templates; and the organization--the scope and sequence, layout of lessons, student teacher ratios.

The personal interview with German focused mainly on filling in gaps in my understanding and verifying what I had concluded by studying the curriculum, especially about the perspectives upon which the curriculum is based. I also was able to find out a great deal about how the curriculum is designed and tested.

The most encompassing marketing brochure supplied to potential clients provides a great deal of information to help evaluate the curriculum. Referred to around the office as The Big Book*, it includes:

Developers List

The main limitation of the current documentation available is a pricing structure. Although pricing is based on a specific series of calculations, it must be done on an individualized basis since the program includes intensive professional development the first year and ongoing staff support in later years. Items which affect pricing includesize of the school staff, number of students, how many grade levels, distance from the franchise home office (for consideration of travel expenses and long distance communication), training schedules, Futurekids, Inc. license fees, and how many units of the curriculum are leased.

Another limitation of the documentation is a lack of statistical data to support the use of the program. However, the very nature of the subject matter and the teaching approach makes doing statistical assessment very difficult. In a review of the literature on computer education done concurrent with this analysis, extremely few pieces of research which could apply to this type of curriculum were found.

The curriculum development team at Futurekids (including editors) is full time staff members. The following list of staff members (involved in FMI), their positions and their background is adapted from staff biographies provided with the marketing information. Staff members for each set of curriculum changes slightly, but the staff involved in the development of FMI is characteristic of the quality and diversity of curriculum staff.

David Ullendorff, Executive V. P., Programs, Products and Services

Cookie Valente, Director of International Operations

Merrick Walter, Director of Curriculum Development

Mark A. German, Vice President; Education

Sarah Ennals Durand, Curriculum Development Manager

Craig Bach, Instructional Designer

Evan Bartelheim, Instructional Designer

Craig Brannon, Instructional Designer

Howard Gross, Instructional Designer

Ashley LaFrenais, Instructional Designer

Rachel Lincoln, Instructional Designer

Paula Mattler, Instructional Designer

Tracey L. Waterman, Instructional Designer

Bob Brunk, Senior Editor

Tina Fusco, Editor

Kelley R. Gludt, Editor

Ann Marie Yoh, Assistant Editor

German serves as coordinator for the curriculum development team; with degrees in human development, social policy, teaching, and communications management and experience in telecommunications and curriculum; his expertise in all four commonplaces makes him an excellent choice as a coordinator of the project. He brings a broad understanding of learners, teachers, the subject matter, and the milieu.

Considering the number of education degrees on the staff, most of the members have at least some training in the learning abilities of students. The learners were represented more fully by Brannon, B.A. in psychology; German, B.S. in human development, and LaFrenais, B.S. in cognitive science.

Former and current teachers at several levels of education represented teachers. Fusco, secondary; German, primary; Mattler, primary; Waterman, elementary; Valente, secondary; and Yoh, adult. Also, Bach has experience teaching gifted adolescents and is an assistant professor, Fusco has experience with disabled students and Bartelheim is an adjunct faculty member at a major university. Waterman also served as a technology coordinator and brings that experience, representing a teacher in a specific area of education.

Due to the cross-curricular emphasis of the curriculum, all members of the development team represented some aspect of the subject matter. Bach, Bartelheim, German, LaFrenais, Mattler and Waterman particularly represent the specific subject matter of computer education, all with computer related degrees and/or strong experience with computer usage.

Durand's background dealing with children's issues, Fusco's involvement with disabled children, Brannon's work with subjects such as emergency rooms and justice, Bach's work with gifted adolescents, Mattler's liberal arts and sociology background and work as an account representative, German's background in social policy and communications management, Lincoln's travels, and Green's experiences as executive producer for Tom Snyder Productions have given this group an interesting mixture of experience with the milieu.

I see no obvious blind spots. With members from multiple areas of teaching, psychology, educational, and work; the curriculum development committee appears to be very complete.

The problem the curriculum is designed to address is the need for computer education at an early age which begins with the basics, builds to mastery, and encourages the student to become proficient in the use of computer skills across the curriculum. As early at 1981 calls were going out for the need to implement the use of microcomputers in public schools.

Early attempts at using computers for instructional support date back to the mid 1960s. Stanford University hooked several classrooms in California and eventually around the country up to Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) via teletypes and telephone lines. CAI was the original computer version of drill and practice. Understandably, when the microcomputer began to make its way into the schools, CAI was the basis for many of the early pieces of software. In 1980 Seymour Papert wrote Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas caused the educational community to begin to shift its focus to elementary programming at early ages. Younger students learned to program in BASIC and LOGO, while older students programmed in Pascal and Assembly Language. Unfortunately, many children either became intimidated or bored by the computer. During the 1980s with the availability of nearly 14,000 educational programs, many schools shifted their focus from teaching computer programming to using the computer to enhance academic skills. Programs such as Math Blaster, Reader Rabbit, and Oregon Train became the core software in this era of computer education. Although successful in enhancing academic skills, these programs failed to teach children how to use the computer as the powerful tool it is.

In this Information Age as computers play an increasingly central role, our schools are moving into a new phase of computer education—Computer Mastery. Students need to master the use of the computer as a tool, to use the different types of computer applications (word processing, spreadsheets, desktop publishing), to learn how to retrieve information from electronic sources, and to combine these skills to create projects to communicate clearly with others. Computer Mastery for students also requires Computer Mastery for the teachers to allow them to integrate the use of computers into their regular methods of classroom teaching.

Historically there has been no cohesive, professionally designed curriculum. Computer teachers have been forced to write their own curriculum. Most teachers have neither the knowledge nor the time to write curriculum for a discipline that is changing so rapidly. With a lack of computer literacy in the teaching community, many schools can do very little to teach computer mastery.

In 1983, as a reaction to the California public schools' failure to provide sufficient computer education at the primary level, Peter Markovitz founded Futurekids. Begun as a local, private provider of computer education classes, Futurekids quickly grew to a franchise operation teaching computer education across the country and the world. In 1994, in response to requests from local schools, Futurekids began to license their curricula first to private and then to public schools. Due in great part to the need for a comprehensive computer education curriculum, the curriculum development and licensing part of the operation has quickly become the main focus of the domestic business.

Through my conversation with German, I was able to gain some insight into the curriculum development process. The prime element that dominates the curriculum development process is the scope and sequence document. Like the field of computers, the document is very dynamic. Although it basically covers the same materials as a few years ago, it has been developed over the years to reflect both the expected cognitive levels of the students and the experienced cognitive levels of the student. German told me that "each year we move a few more objectives into lower grades" due to reports from the field about the successes and achievement. He believes that students are actually developing cognitively at a different rate than a few years ago. After our conversation, I thought of another possible explanation: it might actually be their teachers are more able and that allows teaching of more sophisticated material earlier--perhaps the teachers have been holding the students back!

German identified ten basic principals of Futurekids' educational philosophy:

The overall objective of the Futurekids curriculum is to develop first a competency and then some level of mastery of computer skills in 10 technology areas: word processing, data bases, spread sheets, desktop publishing, operating systems, programming, multimedia, telecommunications, applied technology, and graphic design. The Futurekids curriculum is designed for the kindergarten to grade 8 students.

German outlined the curriculum development process for me. In the early stages of development, the staff begins their day by coming together in a large group to brainstorm ideas. Then the staff breaks up into groups who work on the specific grade levels. Using the yearly revised scope and sequence, they map out the entire year's curriculum. When the curriculum is "finished" the process has only just begun. The curriculum goes through "alpha" testing—it is used with a group of students in a local franchise. This part of the process is truly collaborative, with feed back from both the teachers and the students. After rewrite, the curriculum goes through "beta" testing. This involves sending it further afield for teaching staff elsewhere to read it over and try it out. Assuming no problems are discovered, then the curriculum is ready for dissemination—in a more R, D & D fashion.

The Futurekids curriculum truly represents reflective eclecticism with a primary basis in the cognitive perspective. Like structure of the disciplines, the Futurekids curriculum is designed around the concept of giving students the basic skills of the field and encouraging them to build upon those skills, but not just within the discipline. Many very specific instructions are provided as in the traditional perspective, especially at the early ages. Prior training of the teachers in the computer skills to be taught is critical to the success of the curriculum. Through classroom integration, the curriculum reflects the experiential perspective by encouraging students to use whichever of their new skills they consider appropriate on their own to complete a variety of tasks. In a cognitively driven mode the curriculum helps students develop new skills based on prior knowledge and encourages them to build on them and use them in a variety of ways. Complex skills are taught incrementally, with students revisiting the tasks at increasing levels of difficulty. Teachers are encouraged to help students find ways to use the new skills for decision making, problem solving, and evaluation.

German specifically identified several perspectives employed in the design of the curriculum. Elements of the curriculum design mentioned by German included Piaget's cognitive levels, Bloom's taxonomy, Gardner's multiple intelligences, Montessori's educable moments, and Papert's views on computers and children.

In each lesson, students are trained in specific skills such as holding down "shift", "option" or both to magnify the size of an item to be pasted in of graphical software. Then students work with those skills both in the remainder of the lesson and later in their classrooms as they begin to use the computer in more powerful ways.

The focus of the curriculum, however, is on the use of those skills as a tool for learning. Students are encouraged to feel comfortable with the computer and to experiment with menus and commands and share their experiences with others.

The curriculum's overall purpose is to fulfill the societal goal of computer competency (or mastery) for all students. With the ever growing use of the computer in all walks of life, the adult of the future will need to be fluent in "computer". Administrators are under pressure to implement programs that use computers in an integrated fashion. Basic computer skills are no longer enough, students must know how to apply those skills across the curriculum and to life. The educational aim of the curriculum is to ensure that students gain the ability to keep up in the information age.

The major educational goal is that students will exhibit a high level of competency in not only computer skills, but also the integration of computers through their school and home life by the time they enter high school. Application of computer skills to the use of the computer as a tool for learning is a continuous theme of the curriculum. From the youngest students to those ready to enter high school, skills are taught and built upon while the importance of those skills in their lives is stressed. Mastery of the computer is a means to an end--education.

A complex set of learning objectives guides the scope and sequence of the curriculum, from simplistic objectives for the youngest students to mastery level objective for older students. This scope and sequence specifies over 300 learning objectives, and expected levels of progression through these objectives are included with each unit of the curriculum. These include affective objectives (i.e. "explain the value of helping others"), cognitive objectives (i.e. "problem solve through trial and error"), and intellectual objectives (i.e. knowing how to force a program to quit). Objectives do not simply concern Ryle's "knowing that" type of knowledge, but rather are more "knowing how" or even Broudy's "knowing with". Students are not simply expected to know that a particular set of key strokes will cause a computer to do something, but to be able to perform the actions successfully and apply that knowledge to other situations--involving the use of transferable skills from one application to another.

Futurekids envisions the computer as a tool for success. Computer skills are not taught as a separate subject, but as a tool for success in all subjects. Each lesson teaches specific skills that are used to accomplish assigned projects. Curriculum for the entire year is organized around a central theme and each 7-week unit works toward a specific sub-goal for the theme.

Each lesson focuses first on learning a few new skills and then on using those skills to accomplish a goal. By using templates, the projects completed in each lesson can be much more elaborate than if the entire project were to be done from scratch. The templates set a background for student work or provide a task to be solved.

In addition to a focus on hands-on computer usage, the curriculum uses a variety of themes, commonly available teaching tools (i.e. attribute blocks), discussions, and computer output activities.

A variety of cognitively oriented perspectives form the basis for the Futurekids curriculum. Borrowing from Montessori, Bloom, Piaget, Papert and others the curriculum includes humanistic, developmental and constructivist attitudes about learning. The curriculum views the cognitive development of the student to be critical to the objectives set for any level. The identification and use of educable moments runs through the curriculum. As Papert propounded in his book Mindstorms, and later in his book The Children's Machine children see the computer as belonging to them. This provides a wonderful opportunity for educators to "cash in" on this fascination.

The only "hidden curriculum" I have been able to identify in the Futurekids curriculum is one of teaching generally accepted educational values: the importance of helping others, the need to ask for help, the importance of computers for future learning. The last of these is not really hidden, it simply is not actually stated. Gender equity could also be considered a "hidden curriculum" since the curriculum appears to scrupulously avoid gender specific projects or software. In fact the local franchise sometimes runs computer classes that are limited to girls, but use "boy" toys and tasks like Lego Logo.

The only potential for a hegemonic role I perceive is the issue of computer education for all. Since the program is not in-house, costs could prevent its implementation in all schools, even within a district. Should it be adopted in a school district, it should be adopted district-wide. If a phase-in approach is needed, the first schools to be phased-in should be those in lower socioeconomic areas to avoid a hegemonic effect. Another option would be to phase it in by grade level: grades K-2 one year, grades 3-5 the next year, and grades 6-8 the third year.

The sequencing of the curriculum is based on a scope and sequence and is taught through a spiral curriculum, teaching and re-teaching specific areas of technology at an increasing level of cognition over the nine years of schooling. The units are structured to be taught in 7 sessions of 45 to 60 minutes once a week. With a total of 5 units, it is possible to teach the full curriculum in a 36-week school year. However experience has shown that most schools new to the curriculum actually teach only the first three units, allowing teachers to wait until classes have settled in the fall before launching into the computer curriculum, and space out lessons as needed during the remainder of the year. Since most teachers are also involved in staff development to master computer skills themselves during the first year, the three units usually provide enough challenge for the entire year. Within a few years, four or five units can be taught every year.

As has been discussed earlier, the entire curriculum is designed for cross-curricular implementation. Students learn skills and application techniques during the "computer class" and classroom teachers are trained to help students extend those skills and techniques over the across the other curriculum.

The curriculum books are not only curriculum overviews, but actual detailed lesson plans including thematic content, review, vocabulary, specific questions to raise, projects designed for assessment, and assessment rubrics for evaluation. Although some adaptation of the material is possible, most of what is to be taught is specifically explained.

Throughout the Futurekids curriculum, skills build upon earlier skills. The spiral nature of the curriculum falls into Bruner's concept that teaching complex things must be built at a variety of cognitive levels--"the futility of teaching anything once and for all".

The main media the student deals with in the Futurekids curriculum is that of technology and those items that the student produces using the technology. Common teaching tools such as attribute blocks are employed at certain levels of the program. But, students do not have a text!

Futurekids books in the possession of the teachers drive the curriculum. Teachers first go through staff development of 45 hours in computer education using a staff development manual and hands-on instruction by a Futurekids teacher. Then they train on the specific curriculum units shortly before implementing them. The curriculum unit books are comprised of an overview of the unit with brief descriptions of each lesson, a list of the software that needs to be available on the computers and an objectives progression chart showing when skills are introduced, practiced, and mastered. The bulk of the book is comprised of the actual lessons as described in section 6.2. The lesson itself is virtually scripted, with lengthy explanations of the material including specific questions to ask and topics to raise. Each curriculum book covers curriculum for three grade, with general information plus grade specific instructions. Templates for the various lessons, assessment rubrics, and certificates are provided by the local franchise.

The Futurekids curriculum is organized around the cognitive levels of the students. Each curriculum unit book is written for a set of three grades, but has grade-specific information for each of the three grades. If needed, the teacher can adjust to the individual's abilities by moving up or down a grade level or by simplifying tasks for slower learners or adding challenge to them for gifted students.

Status is a critical issue for this curriculum. The status of computer education in the scheme of school is high and rising. As the proliferation of hardware and software increases, the need for a society of computer learners expands. More fields of work require not simply computer literacy, but an element of computer mastery. No longer are computer masters always considered nerds, they are becoming the "experts" of society. Experience with a variety of applications and the ability to adapt and learn new applications are considered to be vital to survival in the next century. However, many teachers still fear computer education and downplay its status through their fears.

The Futurekids curriculum reflects both a bottom-up and a top-down approach. Like the structure of the disciplines advocates, Futurekids believes in the idea that children can, given basic skills, build the "discipline" of computer education, allowing the construction of transferable skills. But, like behaviorists, the curriculum is based on the way children learn. The use of a spiral curriculum is based both in structure of the discipline's building knowledge with knowledge approach and on the need to recognize differing abilities at differing levels of cognition. The very same cognitive structures that allow for the transfer of skills become more developed as the child matures.

The framework for the entire curriculum is based on the cognitive levels of the student. Throughout the development of the scope and sequence document and throughout the entire curriculum development much consideration is given to Piaget's cognitive levels, Bloom's taxonomy, Gardner's multiple intelligences, Montessori's educable moments, Papert's view of computers and children, and a variety of other psychological assumptions. The entire curriculum is a very child-centered approach.

I have found no other assumptions that underlie the Futurekids curriculum.

If a school has no current computer component, addition of a class in computer education would appear to be a time eater. But experience has shown that many teachers report the use of the computers in other subjects helps to make up for the lost time.

A fully equipped computer lab (as per specifications in Appendix A) is the most effective method for implementation of the Futurekids curriculum. It can, however, be implemented is the teacher's own classroom if sufficient computer capacity is available. Futurekids curriculum works best with a staff-student ratio of 14 to 1, when classes of more that 14 students are involved, Futurekids recommends a second trained staff person (lab teacher or paraprofessional) should be available, unless the lesson is being taught in the classroom while other students work on other tasks. It is possible to implement the program with a single teacher serving a full classroom, but the progress through the material will be slower. The curriculum books do provide for the elimination of specific parts of the lessons as needed, or the lessons can be split into two sessions or taught in long sessions (90 minutes).

The political-legal requirements of implementation of the curriculum hinge on convincing the community that computer education is necessary and desirable, and that the best computer education starts when children are young. Justification of the expense of the hardware, software and training aspects of the curriculum must all be addressed.

Direct costs of the curriculum change include the cost of hardware, software, and training. Other costs that may be associated with the curriculum would be costs for physical plant changes (wiring), space requirements, and possibly even staff cutbacks in extreme cases.

Materials necessary to teach the curriculum include sufficient number and sophistication of computers. Appendix A delineates both minimum computer specifications and required software for the current curriculum and advised minimums for newly purchased equipment. Due to the cooperative learning nature of the curriculum, only one machine is needed for every two students in the class. (The curriculum may be easily adjusted for a one-to-one ratio.) Additionally, a color printer for every two to four computers, a scanner, a digital camera, and internet hook-up (optional) are needed in each classroom that will be used for teaching the curriculum (although the scanner and digital camera could be shared). If the curriculum is to be taught in a dedicated computer lab which is not available outside computer class time, a computer for every four or five students should be available in the individual classrooms to facilitate integration across the curriculum.

As mentioned earlier, direct costs of the program depend on a diverse set of conditions. Cost of the program for a local school with 28 staff to be trained would be about $30,000 the first year, with expenses dropping dramatically in year two. This pricing reflects an assumption that all 28 staff members are trained the first year, and the program is implemented in all 9 grades K-8. The figure includes the initial staff development, curriculum books, and specific staff development for each unit. Expenses for a non-local school can run more than twice as much, depending on the distance and the training schedule.

Other potential costs would have to be examined by personnel with better knowledge of such costs.

Obvious benefits of the program are the development of computer literate staff and students. Benefits to society include a more computer wise work force both now (the teachers) and in the future (the students).

Reading the various articles detailing implementation of the program in other school systems, I have concluded the benefits far exceed the simple benefit of computer literacy. Schools report benefits across the curriculum--more involved students, more in depth research (using the internet), and some schools even attribute part of the credit for improved standardized test scores to the implementation of the Futurekids curriculum.

Staff development, teaching the teachers both computer competency and integration skills is a vital part of the Futurekids program. It is a requirement for initiating the use of the curriculum--curriculum is not even available for purchase unless the Futurekids staff has trained those who will be teaching the curriculum. Further, staff development is mandatory with each unit to ensure teacher understanding of the required skills for the unit and strategies for implementing integration of the unit. For maximum benefit to the students, it is essential that the majority of the teaching staff be committed to learning the computer skills and developing integration of computer use into their classrooms. Futurekids' experience has shown that if most of the staff develops feelings of ownership in the curriculum, by the end of the first year virtually all staff members have begun to fully integrate the use of computers in their classrooms.

Values embedded in the curriculum are basically values that are being emphasized in virtually all schools across the country. The first value embedded in the curriculum is the importance of listening to instructions. Next comes the development of the social skills necessary for cooperative learning and teamwork in the workplace--the value of helping others and the value of willingness to ask for help when needed. Throughout the curriculum, students are encouraged to develop critical thinking skills.

Probably the single most important value is that of becoming a life-long learner. In a world where most adults will experience at least two complete changes of type of work (not just jobs), understanding the value of life-long learning is critical.

The collaborative approach to curriculum change seems to be most consistent with the Futurekids curriculum. By its very nature, the staff development portion of implementation aids professional growth of the teachers. Although the classes teach specific skills, teachers are expected to practice and further develop their skills and the integration of them on their own. Much of the implementation depends on teacher choices in adaptations to instruction.

Since I have had no personal involvement with implementation of the Futurekids curriculum, I have limited knowledge of the approaches that characterize the change effort. However, I have had peripheral knowledge of two implementations that embodied two different sets of attitudes. The first school is a very small elementary school in northern Nebraska. The majority of the teachers saw the need for a computer curriculum and was very involved in a collaborative implementation. They were asked to look at the curriculum and contribute their ideas to the decision making process. They were very active in the decisions from the start, even helping decide in which grades to pilot the program. They have had a very successful implementation and are very excited about what their students are now able to accomplish.

The second school is in western Nebraska and the administrator brought in the program with very little input from the teachers. He simply announced the curriculum change. With teacher cutbacks in the school coming at the same time, teachers were understandably opposed to the change. Eventually the administrator explained that the Board as part of a technology plan had mandated staff training and a curriculum. The administrator also made a unilateral decision on the structuring of the phase-in of the program. Although the implementation is underway and seems to have gained acceptance from the teachers, the early months were much more stress laden than necessary. The collaborative approach could have made it much better.

not anecdotal in nature is provided in the articles provided by the franchisee. In one of the articles the principal of a school pointed to improved standardized test scores and attributed them, in part, to the computer education provided by the curriculum. All the articles provided were very supportive of the curriculum, full of quotes from enthusiastic teachers and students.

Due to the difficulty of testing a program of this type--based on authentic assessment and emphasizing use of the material in other subject areas, no way of testing for statistical analysis has been provided. Within each unit, the final lesson is designed as a rubric for assessment. Students complete a project on their own to demonstrate their personal achievement of the assessed skills. Assessment of the integration aspects of the curriculum is inherent in the classrooms by observation of students increasing use of computers as tools for life.

None of my concerns about the curriculum could be addressed by evaluation data. My literature review for C & I 800 has convinced me research is needed on the effectiveness of a variety of computer education methods, but it would be extremely difficult to determine what factors to test. Perhaps an observational study of students working with the curriculums might be the best approach.

The only measurement-based aspect I see of the student evaluation in the curriculum is the criterion-referenced aspect of the objective progression. All other forms of assessment are based on integrated methods. The rubric does not look at the criterion, simply at mastery versus need to continue to practice. Assessment is done using a rubric and a project for the student to complete, creating a form of authentic assessment. Self-evaluation instruments are also included. The assessment is very growth-oriented--no one fails, they simply are told to keep practicing. And the next unit allows them a chance for practice.

A radical approach to the Futurekids curriculum would probably look much like this one. It would certainly agree with the authentic assessment aspects of the curriculum and talk about the widespread impact of computer education that emphasizes cross-curricular work.

The most impressive strength of the Futurekids curriculum is the combination of staff development and the student curriculum. Another important strength is the cross-curricular nature of the curriculum. Not only does the training help the teachers encourage students to use their computer skills in other course work, the actual curricular lessons deal with a myriad of subjects other than computers. The Futurekids curriculum places in the hands of students a powerful tool for learning, for now and for the future.

The most important weakness is not actually in the curriculum itself. The weak link in the chain is the variability of the cost of the program created by distance from a franchisee. Schools located near a local franchise can be served much less expensively. In a state like Nebraska, this can become a major factor in the cost of the program.

A prime concern in adopting the Futurekids curriculum is the attitudes and beliefs of the teachers. Teacher buy-in to the necessity of computer education is, if not a requirement, at least an important issue to be addressed. Although experience has shown that in most cases even the most diehard opponent to computer education at this level becomes a Futurekids advocate within the first year of implementation, the resistance can create unnecessary barriers to success.

Each full curriculum (OF, FMI, and FF) uses a single overall theme. Futurekids suggests schools either teach one curriculum to all grade levels in year one, the next in year two, and the third in year three or teach the three curriculums in alternating grades--OF in kindergarten, FMI in first grade, FF in second grade, and then back to OF for third grade, and so on. When I discussed this with German, he indicated that current plans are aimed at developing alternate products for later years. According to German, schools seem to only need or want to implement the theme-based units for three years. Technology Integration Facilitation is intended to help lead schools through a transition from computer curriculum to infusion of computer usage throughout the curriculum.

In the first year of implementation students rarely get beyond the third unit. To maximize the effectiveness of the curriculum, units that are not reached could be used in later years. Also, each of the curriculums actually has a sixth unit, used for in-center summer classes where Futurekids operates training centers and for international schools where the school year is longer.